Friday, April 22, 2005

Job Satisfaction Continued

Continuing from the point where I left off let me introduce one more individual Mr R.I think I have already introduced this person in my first post.Remember "the" guy for whom Mr M had commented out that he is best suited for a governmental job(I also fully agree with M on this).But in case of M, the reasons for having such an opinion might be different. May be due to his "peaceful" job n life-style,a balance between work and personal life(read masti) tilted more and more towards the later and still earning more than him despite hailing from almost the same academic/technical background ,Mr M might be feeling jealous of him. But in my case I really doubt whether anyone can be in a better position to understand Mr R's "job satisfaction" other than me, the obvious reason is that I am sharing virtually everything with him (Apart from my undergarments ha ha ha ha ha....Courtesy Munna Bhai MBBS!!) right from the day one I landed in bangalore.

My school of thought suggests that Mr R is a very good "planner".On a scale of 10 I would be more than happy to give him 9.5 or may be even 10.But more often that not he "forgets"(He honestly accepts in public that his memory is embarrassingly weak) that in order to achieve the desired results you need to "execute" the plans also(Ohh really!!!). So that's the introduction abt this guy. Let's now list out his "job-experiences".

R leaves his native place with an "idea" of a job switch over(His first employer is paying him very less although as proclaimed by his employer it's at par with the "average" compensation offered by the IT giants!!! No pun intended, I leave the decision to readers how do u compute the "average" compensation in IT industry by counting some of the popular Indian IT forms or taking out the average of the salaries in some of the MNCs,the true giants in S/W industry) . But after landing in bangalore he gets "lost" in the limelight and the flashy world around him and "forgets" his ideas and starts his journey in his not-so-preferred company.R is very happy undergoing "Entry Level Training" in his company where he did everything other than getting "trained". He was smart enough to realize that these "trainings" don't help you at all at least for ur project works(It's useful only when u update ur resume,adding one line in ur resume like this-- I have undergone a training in this this field from this date to this date where as a part of my training I did so and so...bla bla). He "completes" his training successfully and is now "project-ready"(This was a jargon I learnt during my training days in chennai) . He is allocated into some project. But here he sees no correspondence between the work assigned to him and the training he underwent. In training he had "learnt" almost everything ranging from C/C++/Java/.NET/VB/VC, Algorithms, HTML,XSL within a span of 2 months and that too accompanied with real-world examples!!! My guess is U gotta be a superman to undergo such a training!!! And here he sees something totally new to him, the work,the platform everything.Here he finds the going really tough as there is no such training available for the product he is working on. He finds the users' manual very difficult to follow and he is forced to rely on "chance" and his seniors/co-workers(I will explain this word "chance" in detail later on). Somehow he manages to survive in his job thanks to few good and helping souls around him.

One more enviable "virtue" of Mr R is his "extreme" laziness.You can call it as Neighbours'(read his room partners') envy,Owners' pride!! Me along with one of my close friend reckon he must be the "laziest" around(In fact we openly challenge you to find out a lazier chap and we assure you of a treat in Leela Palace!! Hurry up guys,Offer closes down very soon). There is an old day adage stating that "Alasyam Hin Manushyanaam Sharirashtho Mahan Ripuh" (Laziness is the worst enemy of a human being) and this adage applies word-by-word in case of Mr R. He is so lazy that at times he finds out the details regarding the openings in any company in bangalore from one of his friends(which is me only!!) sitting in chennai. So quite naturally the guy sitting in chennai successfully did a job-change before he did so and he still ends up in the same company.

The most frequent answer/excuse u will be getting from this poor soul is "Yaar Man Nahin Kar Raha Hai/Tha" (I don't/didn't feel like doing/going for that). This guy was "enjoying" and "suffering" at the same time in his job and he also used to complain quite often abt the mismanagement prevailing in the company, the treatment handed out to the novices etc etc. But he is not finding it enough to go for a switch over!!! He "decides" that he should "accumulate" some "experience" before switching his job!! But I constantly reminded him abt the experience he is gaining from his job(which is almost next to nothing,u can safely say so because my guess is inside the company everything runs by chance, some of the bugs reported by the customers using the company products are closed automatically after being left untouched by developers for few days!!!LOL..Apart from that we have an attrition rate closing towards 100 %.On paper it may be only 10-15 % but who ever u talk to inside the comapny he is planning to leave this company sooner than later.U won't find even a single soul who is "satisfied" with his job and is not planning to leave). I thought let me do something for R. So I did some favours to him like finding out the details regarding the consultants,companies,references n all those things u need to know/do before going for a switch over, apart from constantly motivating him(read kicking his a***) to quit his job. He gets a call from one of the start ups in Networking(His current employer which is not so well known in public). On the interview days he feels "lazy"(nothing new!!) and thinks a lot whether to go for the interview or not.Finally he comes up with his "decision" and thinks of letting his friend know of the same. He calls his friend and gives an excuse like this Are Yaar Interview Dene Jaane Ka Man Nahin Kar Raha Hai.Bahut Door Hai..Bus Bhee Nahin Milegee!!!(I don't feel like going for the interview..It's too far man..I won't even get a bus for the purpose) and for good measure the interview location was hardly 2 KMs from his place!!!!. His friend gets angry,blasts him and virtually orders him to go for the interview.This guy decides to take up the interview albeit half-heartedly.And believe it or not he cracks at the interview.In fact he was so confident that he confused the interviewer on a question relating to local and global variable!!!He gets selected by the company and is still in the same company "enjoying" his job. And he "enjoyed" his new company to such an extent that he managed to see a hike of 17% in his salary in the first one month without doing anything extra!!!!

But now at times I "regret" my decision to "motivate" him for a job switch-over. I think I did it just a touch too many times. Now you can see his resume floating in almost every second company having an opening!!! LOL....Talking abt his present job Mr R always looks pretty "satisfied" with his job(although he still finds at least thousand reasons for being disappointed and changing his company!!!). But even then at times he "thinks" seriously of a switch over. The reason he gives is like this "Yaar Company ka kisi ne naam hin nahin hai" (No body has heard of this company!!!).Do u think you should work for a company which is there on the lips of everyone,take for example Infosys!! Given a chance i am more than sure u won't join infy!!! But R thinks so. Freedom of Speech/Thought Man.....He further argues Yaar MicroSoft mein jaaoge to naam hoga(Microsoft has got a name,so if you work for microsoft,no matter what job you do inside, then only it will be good). Sometimes he whines about his job.He is in Network Testing Team, but if u say testing he will take it on his chin and strongly protest, it's not testing man it's SQA,Software Quality Assurance!!! (I am also in QA only and I also hate being dubbed as a "TESTER"!! So R is no exception to that psyche).He complains that He "decided" to join this company only after being "promised" by the company that he has been taken for development and now he is "forced" to continue doing Testing and this gonna continue for next 3-4 months or so!!!!But pretty recently just 2-3 days ago R finds out that the way to development has too many ladders to cross.....You gotta know lots and lots of things before u start "developing". He sees developer spending hell lot of time trying to understand what needs to be "developed", discussing strategies how to proceed and things like that,unlike himself who is done with his job in a flash!!!(Sometimes he goes to office at around 11 am or so and comes back at 4 pm only!!! One possible reason could be either R is too smart for the job or the job he is assigned to is not that testing and taxing given the skill set he possesses!!). He gets terrified by the schedule the developers usually follow which is in stark contrast to his peaceful,comfortable whatever u say for that matter,schedule. So now his opinion takes a U-turn and he starts liking "Testing" and has "decided" to stick with testing only,at least for now!!!

This guy possesses some of the virtues that has a striking resemblence with those i possess. Take for example his special knack for doing right thing at the wrong time and vice-versa.If this guy has an interview tomorrow morning, where he is expected to be asked on C and Data Structure then on the last night he will read almost everything but C and Data Structure!!!(Although still he comes out on top after the interview and even manages to confuse the interviewer with his technical fundaes!!!). I also find myself in the same category but then R beats me on this frontier. Previously i used to believe that this is the worst any1's attitude can be but then God is great. He "created" R thereby ensuring the correctness of the long-said theorem on integers-arithmetic(There is at least one integer less than and at least one integer greater than any given number!!) .So given Mr S there exists Mr R such that Prop(R) > Prop(S).

In the end all I have to say abt R is he doesn't know what he wants from his job. I mean whichever job he joins he will always find some reason to be dissatisfied. Be it Microsoft/Intel or for that matter whatever company. But one thing is sure this guy is a genius and whichever stream he chooses to continue his job, he will be equally good in that and is bound to excel in every domain, if he manages to overcome his lethargic attitude.I wish all good luck and success to this Dhanbaadi n Dukhi Aatma(poor soul)(Although he never looks frustated at any point of time but then looks might be deceptive as well, so he might be forgiven for that and this nick name "Dukhi Aatma" was proudly coined by one of our highly adored :):) depmate Mr Tikli).

And finally I pray to the God that he does something to increase his calorie levels(R always envies guys with high calorie contents, that includes me as well :):) in their bodies!!)thereby ensuring more energy exuded by him, stop making his hair gray, sends a good girl-friend for her, gives him money in abundance and the list goes on and on.Message from /local/bin/God_Prayers_Granter.exeSorry Argument List Too Long!!!! Command Failed.....None of the requests granted!!!! :(:( I feel sorry for R.

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About Me

Following two blog-posts pretty much covers everything about me
http://sumansays.blogspot.com/2005/04/story-of-iit-kgp-computer-science.html
http://sumansays.blogspot.com/2010/05/icebreaker-speech-toastmasters.html
If there is anything more you are interested in knowing, feel free to ask me directly :-) by sending an email to sumanjee@gmail.com or a tweet @sumanjee